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Henry Miller Quotes - Page 12

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Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn't the courage to live and who

Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn't the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.

Hangover, People, Broken

Henry Miller, Frank L. Kersnowski (1994). “Conversations with Henry Miller”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks-- admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve.

Struggle, Might, Fluency

Henry Miller (2007). “Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion I”, p.17, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

The stabbing horror of life is not contained in calamities and disasters, because these things wake one up and one gets very familiar and intimate with them and finally they become tame again. No, it is more like being in a hotel room in Hoboken let us say, and just enough money in one's pocket for another meal.

Life, Pockets, Meals

Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

She may be lying in bed reading a book, she may be making love with a prize fighter, or she may be running like mad through a field of stubble, one shoe one, one shoe off, a man named Corn Cob pursuing her hotly. Wherever she is I am standing in complete darkness; her absence blots me out.

Running, Lying, Book

Henry Miller (2007). “Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion I”, p.7, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

If any man dared to translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is really his experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would go to smash, that it would be blown to smithereens and no god, no accident, no will could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the indestructible elements that have gone to make up the world.

Heart, Men, Thinking

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.

Lying, Book, Shelves

Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.

Add, Literature, Cleansing

Henry Miller, Frank L. Kersnowski (1994). “Conversations with Henry Miller”, Univ Pr of Mississippi

Surrealism is merely the reflection of the death process. It is one of the manifestations of a life becoming extinct, a virus which quickens the inevitable end.

Reflection, Becoming, Viruses

Henry Miller (1961). “The Cosmological Eye”, p.194, New Directions Publishing

The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.

Dream, Artist, Men

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.24, New Directions Publishing

I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: The world of art is the only such realm.

Art, World, Slave

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

Great God! What have I turned into? What right have you people to clutter up my life, steal my time, probe my soul, suckle my thoughts, have me for your companion, confidant, and information bureau? What do you take me for? Am I an entertainer on salary, required every evening to play an intellectual farce under your stupid noses? Am I a slave, bought and paid for, to crawl on my belly in front of you idlers and lay at your feet all that I do and all that I know?

Stupid, Play, Feet

I didn't dare to think of anything then except the "facts." To get beneath the facts I would have had to be an artist, and one doesn't become an artist overnight. First you have to be crushed, to have your conflicting points of view annihilated. You have to be wiped out as a human being in order to be born again an individual. You have to be carbonized and mineralized in order to work upwards from the last common denominator of the self. You have to get beyond pity in order to feel from the very roots of your being.

Artist, Thinking, Self

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?

Truth, Lying, Long

Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

Even if it doesn't work, there is something healthy and invigorating about direct action

Funny, Humor, Direct Action

Henry Miller (1952). “Remember to Remember”

I had learned to harness ignorance with presumption. I was ready to become an unacknowledged watercolorist.

Ignorance, Harness, Ready

I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots.

Night, Mushrooms, Roots

Henry Miller (2007). “Black Spring”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

One thing is certain, that when you die and are resurrected you belong to the earth and whatever is of the earth is yours inalienably. You become an anomaly of nature, a being without shadow; you will never die again but only pass away like the phenomena about you.

Shadow, Passing Away, Anomalies

Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Knowledge, Tree, Guilt

Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

The blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way.

Democracy, Way, Blind

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.166, New Directions Publishing

All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet.

Reading, Done, Toilets

Henry Miller (1959). “The Henry Miller Reader”, p.25, New Directions Publishing

The Englishman, be it noted, seldom resorts to violence; when he is sufficiently goaded he simply opens up, like the oyster, and devours his adversary.

Oysters, Violence, Resorts

Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.52, New Directions Publishing

Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path himself.

Writing, Adventure, Discovery

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong.

War, Common Sense, Shadow

Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.115, New Directions Publishing

You can travel fifty thousand miles in America without once tasting a piece of good bread.

Food, America, Cooking

Henry Miller (1959). “The Intimate Henry Miller”

As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie.

Departed, Dawn, Alive

"A Henry Miller reader".

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